Our New Home

After a week in Auckland as a tourist, we were ready to leave after tracking down the perfect campervan to spend the next year in. She's a yet-unnamed 1985 Toyota Hiace campervan. Here she is in all her glory:

She has all the luxuries of home, including: a stove, microwave, toaster oven, sink, running water, fridge, freezer, space heater, a "living room" that converts into a queen-sized bed, and plenty of storage. Uncle Steve, we've even upgraded from boxed wine (aka "goon", 5L for $10) to drinking real bottled wine.

After leaving Auckland we headed to Whangerei (not pronounced WANG-eri, much to Craig's dismay, but more like WHEN-gary) to get organized. We spent three days there getting the van stocked up, doing a few good hikes (Andrea has the blisters to prove it), and getting back into the camping mindframe.

Currently we are in Paihia, where we camped last night about five feet from a beach, with the Haruru Falls a few hundred metres away, with the falls providing a soothing background noise as we slept. Right now we are parked at another beach across from a luxury apartment building, where someone was generous enough to leave their wireless internet connection on "default" setting so we can share in their wireless fun.

We haven't been able to upload pictures recently, as we've been away from the 'net for awhile. Here's a map that shows where we've driven so far (we've been heading north):

The roads here are wind-y and hill-y, the scenery is green and sheep-y and cow-y.

We miss everyone, don't forget to leave us comments so we know how you're doing.

P.S. Craig says he can smell Dave Lee all the way from here.